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February 11, 2020
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U.S. says Chinese military stole masses of Americans' data

By ERIC TUCKER
and MICHAEL BALSAMO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Four members of the Chinese mili-
tary have been charged with breaking into the compu-
ter networks of the Equifax credit reporting agency and
stealing the personal information of tens of millions of
Americans, the Justice Department said Monday, blam-
ing Beijing for one of the largest hacks in history to target
consumer data.
The hackers in the 2017 breach stole the personal informa-
tion of roughly 145 million Americans, collecting names,
addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers
and other data stored in the company's databases.
The intrusion damaged the company's reputation and
underscored China's increasingly aggressive and sophisti-
cated intelligence-gathering methods.
"The scale of the theft was staggering," Attorney General
William Barr said Monday in announcing the indictment.
"This theft not only caused significant financial damage
to Equifax, but invaded the privacy of many millions of
Americans, and imposed substantial costs and burdens
on them as they have had to take measures to protect
against identity theft." Attorney General William Barr speaks during a news conference, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, at the
Justice Department in Washington, as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Seth Ducharm
looks on.
Continued on Page 3 Associated Press